DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

June 18, 2026June 17, 2026

Two Nostrils Are Better Than One

Have you ever thought about why you have two nostrils? When you need to take in more air during strenuous exercise, mouth breathing becomes necessary. But breathing through your nose is much better than breathing through your mouth for various reasons. When I have had a cold or allergy and one nostril was plugged, the other still worked, at least partially. That could be the reason for two nostrils. But that’s not the whole story of why two nostrils are better than one.

It may be a surprise to you, as it was to me, that even when your nostrils are not plugged, one of them will always draw in more air than the other. They trade off every few hours. Your nostrils prepare the air for your lungs by warming it and adding moisture. When the nostril that has been passing most of the air becomes dry, the other can take over while the first one recovers moisture.

A second reason two nostrils are better than one is more efficient fragrance detection. We detect smells when odorant molecules dissolve in the nasal mucus, where they bind to neurons that send signals to the brain. Some chemicals are quickly absorbed, while others are absorbed more slowly. The nostril with faster airflow will detect odor chemicals that dissolve quickly, while the nostril with slower airflow will have time to detect slow-dissolving chemicals. The brain combines the two fragrances to give us a more complete picture of the environmental smells.

Perhaps another reason two nostrils are better than one is that they help detect the direction smells are coming from. Our ears on opposite sides of our heads can give us information about the direction of sound. Our brains combine the vision from our two eyes to give us a three-dimensional view of the world around us. Even though the nostrils are not as far apart as our ears and eyes, they can still give us a clue to determine the origin of a smell.

Your nostrils contain hairs that filter out some of the dust and pollutants in the air. That is another advantage over mouth breathing. One more thing that comes to mind is that having two nostrils allows a ridge of cartilage to form between them, giving your nose its distinctive shape. (Although you may not think that the shape of your nose is advantageous.) Overall, I have to admit that two nostrils are better than one. I am glad the Creator made that part of the body’s marvelous design.

Reference: popsci.com

June 17, 2026June 16, 2026

Sensing Up and Down

How do you tell the difference between up and down? Vision helps, but blind people still know up from down. We sense gravity mostly through our inner ear. Sensory hairs inside the inner ear are stimulated by small calcium carbonate crystals. As we move, those crystals brush against the hairs, sending electrical signals through our nervous system to the brain. The brain interprets the signals, thus sensing up and down.

We know that plants can determine up and down because, no matter which direction you plant the seed, the roots grow down as the stalk goes up. How does the plant know which direction to grow without a brain or nervous system?

Since ancient times, people have known that plants grow upward while their roots grow downward, but they didn’t know why. Plant growth is controlled by hormones, and the primary one affecting growth is auxin. Plants have specialized organelles known as amyloplasts that enable gravitropism, the ability to sense up and down.

Most plants have heavy amyloplasts at the tips of their roots, where they settle in response to gravity. The amyloplasts trigger the production of auxin. When higher levels of auxin are produced on the lower side of plant roots, the lower side grows downward in the direction of gravity.

A mysterious part of this system is that amyloplasts do not produce auxin. It is produced in another set of cells that are physically distant from the amyloplasts. Without a system of nerves connecting the amyloplasts and the auxin-producing cells, how does the directional information get to the auxin-producing cells? Scientists have not fully answered that question, but they are working on it. The Creator knows.

Auxin is also the major hormone causing plants to grow upward toward light. Phototropins are pigments that sense light and trigger the production of auxin at the tips of the shoots. The auxin is transported to the bottom side of the stem, where it stimulates growth and causes the stem to grow upward toward the light.

Sensing up and down, and many other functions of plants, are carried out without the benefit of a brain or central nervous system. We may think of plants as simple compared to animals, but they must be very complex to accomplish what animals do (including taking in nourishment, defending themselves, and reproducing) without being able to move from where they are planted. The design of living things, both animals and plants, shows that there is an intelligent Designer.

June 16, 2026June 14, 2026

To Improve the Safety of Self-Driving Cars

Human eyes have a remarkable ability to adjust quickly to changes in light intensity. That is especially important when driving at night. When bright headlights from an oncoming vehicle shine into our eyes, we must be able to continue to see the road and any possible pedestrian or deer crossing in front of us. This requires our eyes to adjust very quickly. God has designed human eyes with an amazing ability to adjust quickly to changes in light. Inspired by the human eye’s design, researchers at Penn State University have engineered a “photomemristor” to improve the safety of self-driving cars.

Human eyes have a combination of rods and cones. The rods work well in dim light, and the cones work well in bright light. Together, they enable us to adjust quickly to changing light conditions. Typical photocells can’t handle the wide range of light intensities required in some driving situations, especially at night. The Penn State researchers have designed a device that can “dynamically adapt to changing light conditions.” The newly designed photomemristor is a bio-inspired device that uses water, a gel-like plastic, and titanium oxide.

Many times, we have seen innovations that involve biomimicry, imitating the design God has used in the natural world. Visual perception is an essential human capability. Over 80% of the information we receive about our external environment comes through our vision. To improve the safety of self-driving cars, or robots that perform various duties, requires learning from God’s design of vision.

References: nature.com and popsci.com

June 15, 2026June 14, 2026

Sunflowers Are Amazing

When we stock our bird feeders with sunflower seeds, many birds come and crack open the hard shells to reach the nutritious kernels inside. Humans do the same, though we prefer them already shelled. When you look at the sunflower head, with its center surrounded by petals, you are actually seeing a cluster of flowers surrounding a cluster of seeds. Sunflowers are amazing not only for the nutritious seeds they produce but also for the way they track sunlight.

Phytochromes are pigments within plant cells that sense light and help maintain a plant’s biological clock. This “circadian rhythm” helps a plant determine the passage of 24-hour periods. It can persist for days, even when sunlight isn’t present. The sunflower head moves during the day to track the Sun. On a cloudy day, it may even “see” the Sun using wavelengths outside the visible light spectrum. Because of the circadian rhythm, the sunflower head turns to the east to await the morning sunrise.

It is hard to believe that this incredible design is a product of blind chance. It seems that the sunflower design is not the result of any fortuitous accident. Sunflowers are amazing, with their nutritious seeds and the plant’s relationship to the Sun exemplifying God’s design.

June 12, 2026June 10, 2026

Love Makes Us Vulnerable

Love makes us vulnerable. C.S. Lewis wrote many wonderful books filled with great wisdom. I think Mere Christianity is the greatest, but recently I reread one I hadn’t read in many years. Maturity and life circumstances, particularly losing my wife to cancer, gave me new insight as I read it again. It is The Four Loves, in which Lewis describes four Greek words for love. The Greek language in which the New Testament was written was much more precise about the various emotions that English describes with the word “love.”

Lewis says that the Greek “storge” is what we might call “affection.” “Friendship” is the Greek word “philia.” “Eros” is the Greek term for romantic love. But the greatest of the loves, as described in the New Testament, is “agape,” which Lewis describes as “charity.” It is godly love that endures no matter the circumstances. We have written about agape before, so I will not repeat what we have already said. However, in the section on agape, Lewis makes a statement that is worth taking to heart and even memorizing. Here is what he said:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”

The wisdom of C.S. Lewis reminds us that love makes us vulnerable, but failing to love makes our lives “irredeemable.” Take a chance and love as God loved, even those who do not return that love. In doing so, we follow the example of Jesus, and our lives will be richer for it.

June 11, 2026June 10, 2026

The Magnetic Mystery of Bird Migration

Scientists have known for decades that birds use Earth’s magnetic field to guide their migrations, but how they detect it has been a mystery. A recent German study published in the journal Science offers insight into this magnetic mystery of bird navigation.

Birds, as well as other animals, have immune cells called macrophages in their livers. Among other duties, these macrophages eliminate old red blood cells. As they digest these no-longer-needed red blood cells, they accumulate iron nanoparticles, making the macrophages superparamagnetic. In other words, they can detect Earth’s magnetic field as the bird passes through it.

To test whether these magnetic macrophages help birds navigate, the researchers used homing pigeons trained to fly 12.4 miles to their aviary. Pigeons without macrophages reached the aviary when the Sun was unobscured, but they got lost when the weather was overcast. This suggests that the birds use Earth’s magnetic field as well as the Sun to guide their flight. Using electron microscopy, the researchers observed that the macrophages were in contact with nerve cells, which could transmit magnetic information directly to the bird’s brain.

Solving the magnetic mystery of bird navigation can explain how birds that migrate at night find their way when the sky is overcast. It may also explain how sharks navigate and how bats migrate in the dark. Birds and other migrators use vision, magnetism, and other methods to find their way. God has designed into living things the features they need to survive.

Reference: popsci.com

May 29, 2026May 27, 2026

Intelligent or Unintelligent?

Causes can be of two types: intelligent or unintelligent. As we look for what caused the universe to come into existence or what caused life to appear on this planet, we should ask whether it was an intelligent cause or an unintelligent one, meaning chance. When you see the Grand Canyon, you can conclude that it was the result of natural forces and therefore not a direct intelligent cause. When you see Mount Rushmore, the mountain itself can be attributed to natural causes, but the faces of four presidents carved into that mountain testify to an intelligent cause.

Darwinists agree that the living things we see around us appear to be designed. But those who reject intelligent causation for living things have to keep reminding themselves that what they’re seeing was not designed by an Intelligence, but rather merely happened by chance. Is that attitude intelligent or unintelligent?

The complexity of DNA is certainly a challenge to those who believe that life happened by chance. However, they also have to contend with the fact that DNA relies on proteins for its structure, while proteins require DNA to provide the instructions for how they are to be constructed and folded. Since each requires the other, which comes first: proteins or DNA?

Spontaneous generation of life from non-life was advocated by Aristotle and accepted by science for 2,000 years until Louis Pasteur disproved it. However, those who believe that life came into being without guiding intelligence from purely natural chemicals must accept the concept of spontaneous generation, even though it is not supported by any empirical observation. Francis Crick, an atheist and co-discoverer of the DNA molecule’s structure, said, “Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts.”

Other scientists, such as Fred Hoyle, recognizing the problem of life’s origin, have proposed panspermia (“seeds everywhere”). That idea suggests that life on Earth was seeded by aliens from another star system. Besides having zero evidence for such a thing, it doesn’t explain where the interstellar life came from, stretches the imagination, and requires a great deal of blind faith. When scientists and others stick to their belief in spontaneous generation or panspermia, is that intelligent or unintelligent?

Physicist and information scientist Hubert Yockey, realizing the difficulty of explaining intelligent life without an intelligent cause, wrote, “The belief that life on earth arose spontaneously from nonliving matter is simply a matter of faith in strict reductionism and is based entirely on ideology.” The faith of those who refuse to believe in intelligent design is not based on scientific evidence but on ideological bias. Do you think that believing in creation without a Creator is intelligent or unintelligent?

May 28, 2026May 27, 2026

Beetle Species Study Is Never-Ending

Beetles are essential to life on Earth, serving as food for many animals, but that isn’t all they do. Some beetles recycle carcasses, and others recycle dung. Some beetles help restore the environment after a forest fire. Others exhibit strange and interesting behaviors, such as spraying a noxious chemical at their enemies. One beetle species walks upside-down underwater. Many more beetles do interesting things and fulfill very important roles. Some beetles damage crops or are pests in other ways, especially when they are accidentally moved to new habitats. However, even those beetles that are a nuisance often fill very important roles in their natural environment.

Scientists estimate that there are between five and ten million insect species, which make up about 90% of the world’s animal species. However, only about 925,000 species have been studied enough to be formally described. Of all insect species, the largest number are classified as beetles. Smithsonian sources identify about 350,000 beetle species, but more are discovered each year.

Of the beetle species, about 70,000 are in the Staphylinidae family. One subgroup within that family is Platydracus. According to Wikipedia, there are more than 280 identified Platydracus species. However, recent research in China has identified and recorded 61 previously unknown species. Classifying all beetle species will be an enormous job that will probably never be completed.

We often fail to realize how much diversity exists in the natural world. God has created so many different species, and we haven’t yet been able to study most of them. Even if life has existed on Earth for four billion years, that is not enough time for Darwinian evolution to produce all the species and variety of animals that inhabit this planet.

The more we learn about God’s creation, including the beetle species, the more we are amazed by the complexity and diversity of the essential species that make advanced human life possible.

Reference: popsci.com

May 27, 2026May 26, 2026

There Is Nothing Like an Elephant’s Trunk

Mechanical engineer Andrew K. Schulz at the Max Planck Institute says that elephants are like aliens. He made this claim after leading a study of elephant trunks and concluding that there is nothing like an elephant’s trunk in the entire animal kingdom.

An elephant’s trunk has over 40,000 muscles and is covered with unique “whiskers.” Most mammals have whiskers, but none are like the ones on an elephant’s trunk. The elephant’s whiskers are flexible at the tips and stiffer closer to the skin. For protection, elephants have rough, armorlike skin, but that reduces sensitivity. The elephant’s whiskers are designed to provide sensory detection of its surroundings.

Elephants use their trunks to breathe, smell, grab things, communicate, and perceive objects that are not within their line of sight. The trunk is strong enough to rip a tree out of the ground, but it can also gently pick up a leaf or fruit that it wishes to eat. There is nothing like an elephant’s trunk, with whiskers that have a stiffness gradient to sense the difference between hard and fragile objects. Schulz and the research team suggest that this stiffness-gradient detection can be applied to robotics, where machines must maintain sufficient strength to handle materials yet be gentle enough to avoid damaging the object.

Elephants are not related to any other creature, so attempting to formulate an evolutionary sequence is exceedingly difficult. It seems that elephants were uniquely designed by God to support their environment in various ways. We have noted in previous articles that elephants dig waterholes that provide water for other creatures in desert environments. The more we learn about life on this planet, the more we see that there is nothing like an elephant’s trunk. Living things are the care agents that balance the environment, allowing us to exist.

Reference: Scientific American for May 2026, pages 10 & 11, and scientificamerican.com

May 26, 2026May 24, 2026

A Neatly Arranged Tree of Life

According to the Darwinian concept, gradual changes over long periods lead to the development of new traits. The Darwinian tree of life displays branches leading to diverse life forms. Along each branch, we see new traits emerging and then being further developed in subsequent generations of creatures. That means similar traits indicate common ancestry. Over billions of years, the result should be a tree, with each branch showing an obvious progression of similar traits. A neatly arranged tree of life should be the result. However, that is not the case.

Convergent evolution throws the tree into disorder. Scientists use the term “convergent evolution” to explain similar characteristics appearing on different branches of the tree. Those similarities show up not only in obvious physical traits but even at the genetic level. According to the common understanding of the evolutionary tree, a trait should appear in a branch and then be carried forward, further developed, or even lost in the succeeding branches or twigs. For a neatly arranged tree of life, the same trait should not appear in other, unrelated branches.

According to Richard Dawkins, “It is vanishingly improbable that exactly the same evolutionary pathway should ever be traveled twice.” In other words, it is unlikely that evolution would cause the same trait to appear multiple times in different evolutionary lines. That is, two separate branches of the tree should not be marked by the appearance of the same evolved trait.

However, in many instances, the same trait shows up in animals or plants that are not closely related. In other words, the same evolutionary change occurred independently many times. According to a paper published April 30, 2026, by Yacine Ben Chehida and others in the journal PLOS Biology, “Convergent evolution, the repeated evolution of similar phenotypes, is widespread in nature.” (Phenotypes are the sets of observable characteristics or traits of an organism.)

Who is correct, Richard Dawkins or the paper in PLOS Biology? How can it be “vanishingly improbable” and yet “widespread in nature?” Furthermore, Simon Conway Morris, who has held the Chair of Evolutionary Paleobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge for more than 30 years, said, “Convergence is ubiquitous.” If by ubiquitous he means present anywhere and everywhere, how can unguided evolution explain that? How can something be “vanishingly improbable” and “ubiquitous” at the same time?

Since a neatly arranged tree of life does not seem to exist, perhaps the existence of a common creator God has more explanatory power than mere chance evolution. For more examples of convergent evolution, read our posts HERE and HERE.

References: scienceandculture.com and journals.plos.org